If I am following this hair splitting, I think the argument is whether the person who got shot had enough evidence to be in fear for their life. A lot of us feel Treyvon Martin likely did have reason to fear for his life, and acted defensively, that Zimmerman’s account was not convincing. But we don’t really know what happened. For those of you that defend Zimmerman, if there was evidence that Zimmerman had brandished his gun at Martin, and Martin had tackled him to get the gun away from him, would that change your mind as to his guilt?
You are simply not familiar with the law, which is fine. You have a right to kill someone in self-defense, when you are not behaving unlawfully and someone puts you in reasonable fear of your life or limb, such that lethal force is a proportional means of protecting yourself.
When you are acting unlawfully the right to self-defense is massively curtailed, with only a few extreme hypotheticals where you would still retain it. The defendants in the Arbery case were committing an illegal assault prior to killing the victim, proven by the prosecution. The assault charges were not incidental–they are what the prosecution used to highlight that the defendants actions towards Arbery prior to the shooting were not part of lawful, but rather unlawful, behavior. Thus meaning the shooting that followed was not self-defense–you can’t act in self-defense when you are committing a crime against a victim and that victim tries to defend themselves. That is the simple truth of it.
Now, it’s absolutely your right to hold a different opinion, but 12 jurors in Georgia disagree with you. For the scumbags who killed Arbery their opinion is thankfully the only one that matters.
If the jury had disagreed that the defendants were committing an assault, and agreed they were trying to affect a legitimate citizen’s arrest, it is likely they would have acquitted them of the assault charges, with acquittals on the assault charges conviction on the murder charges would have been extremely unlikely. The way the jury ruled clearly establishes they bought the prosecution’s theory of the case–three men committed an unlawful assault upon the person of Ahmaud Arbery, he first fled then attempted to defend himself to save his life, and was murdered. The moment the men used force on Arbery to curtail his free movement they crossed from being citizens allowed to defend themselves into violent criminals, not allowed to use lethal force against their victim–and doing so escalated their crimes to murder.
Like how we can’t use “active shooter” to describe someone who is actively shooting? How many terms is the pro-death side going to co-op?
It may seem like hair splitting but legally it really isn’t. If we had evidence Zimmerman was brandishing prior to the shooting then it changes the entire nature of the interaction–it is proof that Zimmerman was behaving criminally and not just being an obnoxious neighborhood watchman. Because there is a veil of shadow over the conflict that lead to Martin being on top of Zimmerman punching him, it is very difficult to say with regards to reasonable doubt and that high bar of proof, that Zimmerman was acting unlawfully, which would have made his shooting unlawful in most cases.
The problem a lot of people have with the Zimmerman case is they really don’t like George Zimmerman, and they just deeply feel like the fact Zimmerman followed Martin–against police dispatch orders, and verbally confronted Martin, must mean he was committing an unlawful act. That collection of known facts doesn’t constitute an illegal act, it may suggest an illegal act followed, but we have no clear eye or ear witness to what followed. That’ s a classic situation where reasonable doubt exists.
Saying Zimmerman was correctly acquitted is not the same thing as saying his behavior was appropriate. There were no witnesses to the most important aspects of that confrontation, and the physical evidence corroborates the self-defense story that Zimmerman reported to police.
Note in the Zimmerman case the defense didn’t even have him testify–they felt no need to take that risk because the prosecution just did not establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt in the presenting of their case. It’s a feature not a bug of our system that a guilty man walks free if the state doesn’t have the evidence to convict him–the evidence isn’t a technicality, it’s important, because we don’t know with anything approaching high certainty without that evidence, and the State shouldn’t be taking people’s liberty away on speculative cases.
Pretty much, when you’re using a specific term of art for which there are many less confusing synonyms, the desire to improperly use the term of art is entirely malignant and intended to confuse and deceive. It’s not that complicated.
I actually think they reached the right verdict, because of the reasonable doubt issue. But I also think that Zimmerman is probably guilty as hell and DID brandish or otherwise put Martin in fear of his life. It wasn’t an unprovoked attack. I believe it like I believe OJ stabbed his ex wife. My own standards don’t have to be beyond all reasonable doubt.
But people here are asking what the difference is. The difference is that it’s possible (though not plausible) that Martin doubled back and jumped Zimmerman unprovoked.
I’d agree it’s possible Martin doubled back and jumped Zimmerman, albeit I don’t think that’s super likely (but certainy a possibility). I think in my mind it’s 50/50 that Zimmerman started the physical confrontation or did something like brandish his gun, but some of that is based on my perceptions of George Zimmerman the person after the fact, so obviously not something you could use in a jury scenario. It also doesn’t seem unlikely to me that Zimmerman made a verbal threat, or used fighting words, or even tried to physically restrain Martin. Just none of that can be proven, which is all that the jury can really think about. We can speculate, and for us, we can weigh that since that case George Zimmerman has well confirmed he’s a huge piece of shit which also can be factored into how we weigh things, but obviously none of that is proper for a jury.
I also don’t think it’s all that impossible that Zimmerman said some assholish or aggravating thing to Martin and Martin decided to fuck him up, keep in mind Martin was a teenage boy, and teenage boys aren’t known for being able to take slights entirely cool-headed.
Sure. Can we get a list of terms that the pro-death side has already latched onto then, so the rest of us can know what ordinary terms have narrowly skewed meanings to some?
“Active shooter” can’t be used to describe someone who is actively shooting.
“Stalking” can’t be used to describe methodically following someone until an opportunity to attack arises.
What else?
I’m not sure what “pro-death” means, so will consider the rest of your post silly and stupid and not worthy of response.
Ah, that’s the easy way out, isn’t it? Simply keep objecting to the terms that people use. YOU get to define the conversation, eh.
Modding: OK, let’s dial it back please. Both of you are pushing it.
No more pro-death and no more silly and stupid please.
My understanding of the law includes the notion of self-defense. It doesn’t matter if Martin was the one who first made physical contact with Zimmerman, because he was perfectly within his rights to do so, because he was defending himself from a clear threat. Zimmerman cannot use the fact that Martin was defending himself as justification for his own actions.
Assuming the evidence was convincing, then yes it would. In that case Zimmerman would have been the aggressor not the victim, and he would be the one responsible for Martin’s death. I will add that we have pretty decent reason to think that Martin did not know that ZImmerman was armed, as it’s unlikely that he would have failed to mention it in the detailed description he gave on the phone to his friend.
The difference between the two cases is that the McMichaels were the ones to break the law by assaulting Arbery, while (based on the evidence we have - that is, the only things we can use to make a judgement) Zimmerman did nothing illegal before he was attacked.
WHy do you think it’s implausible? Do you think Martin was lying to his friend, or that she lied under oath to the court about what he said? It’s not ZImmerman’s claim that is being relied on here, it’s Martin’s reported words. That’s what, for me, takes it from reasonable doubt due to lack of evidence and to clear evidence of Zimmerman’s innocence.
What actual evidence do you have for that? It would need to be pretty strong evidence as it’s contradicted by what both Zimmerman and Martin said, and whilst I get why you’d ignore Zimmerman it’s harder to justify ignoring Martin’s reported words.
No one aside from Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman really know if Martin was perfectly within his rights to lay hands on Zimmerman, which is core to all the issues involving that case. Obviously one of them is dead and whatever he knew went to the grave with him, the other has every reason imaginable to never tell the truth.
For starters, I’d say that the fact that Martin is dead is pretty strong evidence that Zimmerman was a threat. If a man pursues someone with a gun, and ends up shooting him, then the man was in actual truth a threat, and it’s always reasonable for someone to believe the truth.
You are wrong about everything except your last sentence, for reasons that have already been explained in this thread. Carrying a gun is a right, following someone is legal, and so is shooting and killing someone under certain circumstances. Unless you have evidence that those circumstances didn’t happen - something you don’t have, unless you know something that neither the trial court nor the media had access to - you have no evidence of wrongdoing. That is the truth, and any reasonable person would believe it. The only reason you don’t believe it is because it doesn’t fit your bias to believe that a young man could possibly attack an older man they felt disrespected by.
The law is not the only truth, and not the only morality, and not the only thing that matters. Many of us believe that Zimmerman’s behavior (even just what isn’t in any dispute) was morally reprehensible, even if it wasn’t determined to be criminal beyond a reasonable doubt, and that’s an entirely legitimate belief.
That’s fine as long as you don’t then act on that belief in any way except for to try to change the law going forward. Saying things that are factually false, such as calling Zimmerman or Rittenhouse murderers, or saying that they should be in prison, or that you would have considered the guilty had you been a juror, are unacceptable. In those circumstances, the law is the only truth that matters and the only moral thing to do is follow the law.
But please, explain in detail exactly what is reprehensible about trying to find out what a stranger is oding in a private neighbourhood, or in shooting someone who is on top of you bashing your head against the floor. You won’t be able to describe any of Zimmerman’s actual behaviour as such, just invented stuff that fits your prejudice.